Daily Reading List – August 6, 2025 (#603)

Good day back at home after a day trip. You’ll find at least four pieces below that have some strong opinions about software development. That’s what I like reading!

[blog] No, AI is not Making Engineers 10x as Productive. Good post. AI helps, it’s not magic. There are areas it makes a big difference, but it’s not the entire workflow. Yet. Or maybe never.

[blog] Meet your new AI coding teammate: Gemini CLI GitHub Actions. There’s value in adding AI to *more* of your workflow. Here’s a free addition to your GitHub repo that can triage issues, perform code reviews, and even implement proposed changes. More here.

[blog] This Week in Gemini CLI. That GitHub feature is just one of a few very nice updates to the CLI. I really like the ability for a CLI session to reference multiple file directories.

[article] OpenAI launches two ‘open’ AI reasoning models. Big model week so far, and it’s only Wednesday. Good to see some open work from OpenAI.

[article] Anthropic’s new Claude 4.1 dominates coding tests days before GPT-5 arrives. Claude continues to be a great choice for coders. They’ve got the mindshare with developers, and have earned it.

[blog] Vibe Coding vs. Spec-Driven Development. I really like the spec-driven approach as it steers us back towards decision records and thoughtful planning before setting agents (or humans) loose.

[article] Amazon will offer OpenAI’s open-weight models, sidestepping Microsoft via Apache 2.0 license. Smart of OpenAI to continue diversifying its availability. AWS needed this too!

[article] Wells Fargo taps Google Cloud for agentic AI push. Value is moving up the stack. Models are necessary but not sufficient. Agentspace (now used by Wells Fargo) makes AI actionable for everyone. More here.

[article] Refactoring Stubborn, Legacy Codebases. Vibe coding new stuff is cool, but we all know that the gnarly work happens with existing codebases. Stripe engineers talk about how they worked through a modernization.

[blog] Jules, our asynchronous coding agent, is now available for everyone. This background agent for GitHub is now GA. Simon likes the term “asynchronous coding agent.”

[article] Stop Hunting 10x Engineers: Build a 10x Organization Instead. Discouraged because you can’t recruit 10x engineering unicorns? Stop it. You can likely build a fantastic org with the talent you have available.

[blog] Optimize your cloud costs using Cloud Hub Optimization and Cost Explorer. App ownership isn’t always glorious. Especially if you’re digging around logs and billing spreadsheets to figure out chargebacks. This looks like a step up.

[article] JetBrains previews no-code app builder. Good complementary offering from an established IDE vendor.

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